A single mother from Kentucky was left reeling after discovering the man she was falling in love with was not the Netflix actor she thought he was, but rather a scammer.
Appearing on the YouTube show Catfished, Kentucky single mom McKala described how she fell prey to the scammer's ruse and became convinced she was in a secret online romance with Australian Stranger Things actor Dacre Montgomery, who plays Billy Hargrove on the series.
McKala fell for the scam so totally she sent the catfish tons of money and even divorced her husband for him.
Victim Divorces Husband For Stranger Things Romance Scammer!youtu.be
As she revealed on Catfished, McKala and the scammer exchanged messages for an entire year, and she came to sincerely believe it was Montgomery she was talking to.
An amateur actor and filmmaker herself, McKala became so entranced with the man she thought was Montgomery that she divorced her husband and began sending the scammer money and gift cards worth thousands of dollars.
The divorce was not the worst thing in the end, as McKala says her husband and marriage were "toxic." But the roughly $10,000 she parted with definitely stings.
McKala says she and the scammer met in an online club for artists and creatives. She told Catfished:
“I’m suspicious from the get-go, until he starts doing things that make me believe he is who he is.”
The man she thought was Montgomery began confiding in her about Montgomery's real-life partner, model Liv Pollock.
“He was venting to me after a few months about his partner, saying she is very controlling of him. He doesn’t get to do the things he wants to do. She’s always there. She’s always got to supervise."
"I kind of empathize with that because my ex-husband was that way.”
The scammer's ruse was aided by Montgomery and Pollock's lack of social media posts about each other, which made McKala think they really were on the rocks.
On social media, McKala's predicament generated quite a few raised eyebrows—and of course lots of jokes.
In the end, McKala learned a difficult lesson about how easy it can be for some people to be taken advantage of—and how well scammers know this.
“If you’re someone like me, you’re afraid of abandonment and you’re a real big people pleaser and you’re very co-dependent... These scammers, they just kind of come in and they leech off that.”
Be careful out there, kids.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram